


Unlocking the Orbit

by genarti



Series: Lunar Base ABC [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Gen, Kevin (sort of), pure silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm only sorry that I didn't have the time to expand this into something vast and plotty and ridiculous, but I hope it's sufficiently ridiculous to amuse all the same!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Unlocking the Orbit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bobcatmoran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobcatmoran/gifts).



> I'm only sorry that I didn't have the time to expand this into something vast and plotty and ridiculous, but I hope it's sufficiently ridiculous to amuse all the same!

Joly's quarters were small and cozy. Luxuries were few on the moon, no matter which sector of ABC Base one looked to; the pillows and hangings and trinkets one might have found in such a room on Earth were nowhere to be seen. But the video displays on the walls were set to bright abstract paintings, rotating often from one to the next. The walls had been painted carefully, blue around the bunk and yellow elsewhere, in accordance with the most up-to-date theories of therapeutic mood influence. Someone, more enthusiastic than skillful, had drawn swirling designs about the doorframe and the computer terminal in several colors of permanent marker.

On the bunk were sprawled two young men, one balding, the other with head shaven in either sympathy or fashion. Joly was reading a magazine on his tablet, while Bossuet looked companionably over his shoulder. Into this domestic scene intruded a quiet chiming noise.

The two glanced up without concern, as the doors whooshed into the wall's recesses. Only those with the proper authorization code could enter uninvited, and a Guardian's system override would have triggered an alert. Indeed, a moment later, Courfeyrac's artfully coiffed head poked through the entrance.

"Ah! Good, I hoped I'd find you."

"You could have pinged," Joly pointed out mildly. "Then you would have known."

"I'm told it's the polite thing," Bossuet added, grinning. "Only by hearsay, you understand. No one of my personal acquaintance has ever done what our dear instructors tried to instill in us by way of courtesy. Combeferre gets quite sarcastic on the subject of the utility of long-distance electronic communication for not interrupting one's friends, all the same. Also, we could have been naked."

Courfeyrac dismissed all these objections with an airy wave of the hand, as he bounded lightly into the room to lean against the wall. The doors slid shut once again. "If you cared, you'd've privacy-locked. If you don't, well, we are all enlightened and free-thinking men, not to mention accustomed to close quarters. Most of your callers wouldn't care – in Enjolras's case, might not notice – and it's a worthwhile moment of education for any who would. You see, we continue our mission in the small moments as well as grand gestures. Anyway, I was in the neighborhood. It's Combeferre I'm looking for. Have you seen him?"

There was a delicate pause.

Joly coughed. "There is such a thing as long-distance electronic communication--"

"I _did_ ping him, of course. He's not answering. It's not an emergency, but I would like to speak with him, and now my curiosity's roused."

"Your curiosity never rests in the first place," Bossuet pointed out, without the slightest trace of censure. "Well, I haven't seen him. Did you ask Enjolras?"

"What do you take me for? Naturally. He's got his auto-reply up. The one that deftly implies that he's devoting all that focus to dutiful study of precisely what our teachers would prefer him to learn. I remain proud of him for that. I will inquire later what he actually has to show for his time. Meanwhile, the question remains."

"I saw him when we went off-shift an hour ago," supplied Joly. "He mentioned that he might go Earth-gazing beyond the dome, but said nothing about timeframe. He might have meant immediately or later, or tomorrow. I'm afraid that's all I know."

"Ah well. Useless fellows, both of you." The laughter in Courfeyrac's voice gave the lie to his words, as did the fondness on his face. "If that's all the intelligence you have, I will go searching myself. Goodbye, adieu, good air to you both, and may you enjoy that magazine – if there are any good pictures of the London fashion week I expect to borrow it the moment you're finished."

"It's a medical journal," said Joly.

Courfeyrac looked briefly thoughtful. "Only if there's good anatomy, then." 

Bossuet laughed. "Entirely too good; it's much too detailed. Mostly brains, which while extremely attractive in the proper context do not lend themselves well to the visual medium. You are doomed to disappointment."

"Alas. Well, then, I'll see you both at the usual study session tonight?"

"Of course."

Bossuet added, "I've sent around a bit of homework. Take a look when you get a chance, and tell me what you think of it."

Courfeyrac waved acquiescence with the spare, gracefully contained gesture of a man accustomed to low gravity and fragile objects, and let himself out.

He proceeded down the hall with the easy loping stride of a native of the moon. Courfeyrac had never visited Earth; he only knew of one moon-raised peer of his who had, Bahorel, who swore up and down that he would never do so again. He frequently declared, liberally punctuating himself with swear words, that standing on Earth was like spending every breathing moment in one of the centrifugal exercise bikes that everyone was required to use to maintain bone density. If his audience seemed interested, he would go on to decry the sky blue and arching overhead, neither the fathomless starry black of the lunar sky nor the familiar ceilings of the base; the air full of the racket of animals and insects, and small furry ones underfoot everywhere; plants growing all over, right between cracks in the pavement, disregarded, trodden upon carelessly; everything taken for granted, from atmosphere to water to the inevitability of geocentric politics. Well enough for those accustomed to it, but a fool's game for those who preferred the moon's tight-knit community and hard-won life. Bahorel's friends, less experienced but like-minded, all agreed.

Ahead, Courfeyrac saw a figure bobbing along with the jerky bounds of someone Earth-raised and not yet used to lesser gravity. Pontmercy, he thought, and sped up to greet him. Then he saw that Pontmercy's attention was fixed on another man, a stranger in an ancient and ill-used labcoat, and that he was following the other with inept fervor. Courfeyrac had manners. He slowed again.

This maneuver had caught the attention of a glowering man in the blue and white uniform of a Guardian: those who safeguarded less the internal order of the station than its citizens' compliance with Earth-imposed law. Courfeyrac sent him a jaunty grin.

Guardian Javert – for so his name badge proclaimed him to be – scanned him up and down, with the slight squint that meant his implants were scanning Courfeyrac's ID data. Courfeyrac had heard that some of Earth's more authoritarian regimes had developed much more smoothly functioning implants, but nothing of the sort had made it to the moon yet. "Kevin Courfeyrac," he said.

"Just Courfeyrac, if you please." Courfeyrac hooked his thumbs in his pockets, with an easy smile. "'Student' isn't much of a title, I admit – it would be doubly tasteless to insist upon it, first for the gravitas it lacks, second for the courtesy I would lack – but still, sir, we're not Earthers, after all."

It took some effort to hide his smugness at the Guardian's identification of his first name. It wasn't his birth name, any more than it was Enjolras's or Joly's or Feuilly's. Changing their first names in the system had been Bahorel's idea, protest and safety measure combined. The name had been Grantaire's contribution; it amused him deeply, though he had never clearly explained why.

The Guardian, of course, sneered. Courfeyrac didn't know much about him personally, but he'd been told that this fellow was a stickler for the rules, both written and implied. "We owe both culture and obedience to the Earth that created us, _Student Kevin_. Your parents gave you that name. You should respect it."

"I respect my parents very deeply, sir," Courfeyrac answered, "both genetic and metaphorical." It was even true, although he was quite certain they were using different metaphors. 

Guardian Javert scowled. But there was nothing for him to question Courfeyrac further about. Pertness remained legal, despite the dearest hopes of certain of Courfeyrac's teachers. "Be sure that you do. Get about your business, Student Kevin, and be sure you don't interfere with traffic in the halls."

Courfeyrac barely stifled the urge to say, _You must be truly bored today, sir._ "Roger, sir," he replied instead, and pushed off with another bound.

If Combeferre wasn't in his rooms nor out on the Mare Cogitum thinking deep philosophical thoughts at the rising Earth, then Courfeyrac would wash his hands of the fellow for the afternoon. He had homework to be doing, in theory, but more importantly he had other matters to attend to: Bossuet's so-called 'homework,' and double-checking that the surveillance misdirectors were all intact for tonight's meeting. Soon, the day would come when Earth tried to lean a little too hard on its former colony; the people of the moon would join together, and prove that the child had grown, and the colony had become its own nation. If they had to demonstrate ABC Base's self-sufficiency and determination the hard way, well. Certain discreet societies among the colonists would have ensured that the base stood ready. The day would come, and soon.

Courfeyrac cared nothing for his title of Student, because he had a better one: Lunar Citizen.

**Author's Note:**

> According to [NASA](http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/travelinginspace/30sept_spacemedicine.html%22), centrifugal exercise bikes might be a real means of helping astronauts stay healthy someday. Pretty much everything else in this I made up with blithe abandon.


End file.
